Much More Denver

with Jenny and Lauren

Well I have been back in Morehead since Sunday night, and finally starting to get back in my daily routine. Still on that Rocky Mountain High from last Thursday's win against Louisville. It has been great being back and still seeing the school spirit across campus. The University Bookstore can not keep shirts in stock, and we even got national attention through ESPN and Yahoo news on our "Yum! Tastes like Victory" shirt.

The bus ride home from Denver, was entertaining just like the way there. We really did travel with a great group of students, and it was fun to see our bus become great friends when just a few days before no one really knew each other. It was definitely a great way for the students to kick off their spring break. Thanks to the awesome buses, we had direct tv, so a lot of basketball was watched with a few movies in between. Kansas, even though I slept through most of it, was still crazy long. I would wake up through out the night and we would still be in Kansas! How does that happen, I am still trying to figure out. We couldn't have asked for better weather, beside a little wind it was blue skies and sunshine. When we would stop for a break, I could smell spring! This has been such a life memory, that I can say years from now; I was physically in Denver and witnessed Morehead State beating the University of Louisville, and I got there in a bus!!!!

Once again, I would just like to thank our wonderful bus drivers from Free Enterprise and the hotel staff from the Denver Hyatt Tech Center. They were some of our biggest MSU supporters!

I hope you all enjoyed the Much More Denver blog. I know Lauren and I had a great time with it.

For those in the Rowan County area, there will be a community wide Victory Celebration Parade for Lakeside Christian Girls' Basketball Team, Rowan Co. Boys' Basketball Team, and MSU's Mens' Basketball Team this Wednesday, March 30 at 5pm on Main St in Morehead. So make sure you are there to cheer on all of our local basketball successes!

By now you have seen we are all over the news and ESPN! MSU
upsets UofL!!! I’m sure many of you have celebrated our win last night and we
have done the same here in Denver, CO. We woke up this morning to what could be
described as natures confetti for the MSU win, or if you want to be technical
it’s call snow! It’s not a ridiculous amount of snow but our Rowan Co. friends
would not have had school today.

The MSU fans here have a free day to go out and explore
Denver and sleep of their celebrations. It may be a few more hours until we can
get you all some student feedback but we will get you something. MSU faculty
reading this blog: the students here have mentioned they have assignments due
and things they need to read, so don’t worry they are still doing homework, or
at least thinking about it.

It is amazing to see all of the alumni on Facebook and
Twitter showing their support for MSU. Seeing all of the encouraging comments
brings tears of joy to my eyes. I especially love the new Morehead State Eagle
fans that are letting us know Morehead State is their new favorite team! I
recently said that “social media never sleeps” and it was reaffirmed last
night. Every minute there was a new post from someone saying way to go Morehead
State! On twitter #Morehead was the 3rd most trending topic in the
United States. Take that Justin Bieber! Magic Johnson, the Magic Johnson,
tweeted yesterday, “13 seed Morehead State upsets Louisville! This is what
makes the NCAA Tournament so great-anybody can beat anybody on any given day.”

So keep those comments coming on Facebook and Twitter.
Change your profile picture to Morehead State, you can get our March Madness
picture from www.moreheadstate.edu/bigdance
Let’s keep Morehead State the topic everyone is talking about!

Tomorrow’s game against the No. 12 Richmond Spiders will
be at 5:15 pm EST.Call Athletics
at 606.783.2088 for ticket information. The game will air on CBS or online at www.ncaa.com

Hi everyone! Thank you for keeping up with us, we just
wanted to let you know we all made it to Denver safely and we are all still on
speaking terms! This trip has been great so far; everyone is still getting
along, smiling and laughing. I think now that everyone is at the hotel, can
rest comfortably, and shower things will only get better.

As you know we are on the cool bus and we have done some
great things with our students. Check out our video blog that is finally posted
on YouTube. We are going to have some guest bloggers from our students so you
can get to know a few of them (I’m sure you are sick of us!) and we will try to
do a video blog with Kevin Koett our Dean of Students to get his perspective
and some highlights from the not so cool bus.

The sun is finally up here in Denver and the view from our
hotel is amazing, hard to believe that we are a mile high right now. Today is a
life memory day for the players, the coaches, the staff, students & the
whole MSU family. I know the students on the buses are very grateful for the
opportunity to be here in Denver and what a college memory they can talk about
years later.

During the game be sure to keep up with the MSU facebook page, as well as MSU Twitter. As much as we want to, it may be a little
difficult trying to blog on a laptop during the game! But check back afterwards
for another post.

Hello Eagle faithful! We are around 3 hours out from our
destination of Denver, CO. I am showing it is almost 5 A.M. where you all are
and 3 A.M. here on the cool bus, and we have one sleepy bus! We stopped at our
last rest stop until we arrive, and let me tell you, people out west must not
go to the bathroom much because the amount of stalls in these places keeps on
shrinking! But if that is our only complaint I have heard so far we are doing
great!

I have to admit, this is the first time I have traveled by
bus this far west, I figured it couldn’t get anymore boring than Illinois but I
was wrong (apologies to my Illinois friends)! I once heard a joke about a
Kansas man who watched his dog run away for days because it’s so flat here, I
no longer think it’s a joke but a very true statement! We did a poll of our
students to see who brought any good luck charms with them and also asked if
anyone had any pre-game rituals they wanted to share. You know how some of
these super-fans get! My sister will only watch her beloved alma mater while
wearing an odd number of paraphernalia, I know one man who will start out with
one jersey on and if he feels it isn’t working he will change into another one
or take it off part way through the game. So far we have seen only one brave
soul on this bus willing to share that his lucky charm is his #35 MSU jersey,
and we all know who he is a fan of!!!!

We have one amazing group of students on this bus, I don’t
mean to brag but these students have been so fun! MSU has a way of bringing a
diverse population together and under the right circumstances they become a
small family. These students will remember this bus trip in a positive way for
years to come, I feel bad for those students who did not get to come experience
this. We now have some amazing bus drivers as well! We pulled into a gas
station in Kansas and picked up 2 MSU wearing bus drivers that excited these
students, and then the Dean freaked them out by wearing a pink bikini that I
have on video (it’s not pretty).

We are still struggling to load our video so hopefully we
can at least get our first one posted at the hotel. Keep checking back often
for all of the excitement!!

It is now officially Thursday, March 17th ,which used to be known as St. Patrick’s
Day, but now on the fan buses it is known as “Game Day”Even though we still have many miles to
go, the excitement for us is building. I know I am ready to arrive at the
Denver’s Pepsi Center and show Denver just who Morehead State is.

As we travel through the flatlands of Kansas, “The Wizard of
OZ” comes to mind, and how Dorothy said, “There is No Place Like Home.” I think
that Dorothy is right, and I can guarantee, that there are many people who
consider Morehead “home” even though they may not have been there in quite some
time.

It is great to see on all of MSU’s social media outlets the
amount of alumni who are supporting the team, the coaches, the fans traveling
on the buses, and the University in general in our quest to the Big Dance. I
love logging into my facebook and seeing all of my friends who attended
Morehead State with their profile pic as something MSU related. Or checking out
the MSU FB www.facebook.com/MoreheadStateUniversity
and seeing all of the “Go Eagles” and “I will be watching the game” comments. I
hope that this sense of camaraderie will carry on well into 2011 and later.

You have a lot of time to think on a 20 hour bus ride, and
for me I have thought aboutmy
life in undergrad and graduate school. The lunches in ADUC, the Free Friday
Movies in the old Theater downtown, the MTV Real World people that would come
and speak to students, the concerts in the AAC, the 2 life changing opportunities
I had going on the Spring Break, Spring Back Trips to Gulfport, MS to help with
Katrina Relief, the list can go on and on, but if you can’t tell already MSU is
a very special place to me. In the words of Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and
Linda Ronstadt, “It Feels Like Home to Me.”

So if you haven’t had the chance to be on campus lately, I
highly encourage you to do so. There has been so many great additions like the
new Space Science Building, the Center for Health, Education and Research where
our Nursing and Imaging Sciences classes are now located, and the new Student Recreation Center
which will be finished soon.

If you know a high school student who is trying to narrow
down their college choice, have them visit campus and see why so many people
wish that they can click their heels 3 times and appear on campus. You can
schedule a campus visit at www.moreheadstate.edu/visit